Hey guys,
I'm so glad I found this website. I'm a beginner and I'm learning the basics. I've been having difficulty trying to sense or feel/manipulate energy. The exercises I've been trying to do are creating energy balls and sensing the energy of inanimate objects such as stones, leaves etc. But I'm having trouble feeling anything at all.

From all the books I've read I understand that everybody feels energy in a different way - some feel heat, others feel tingles, others feel magnetism. But I don't seem to be feeling anything?

I even rub my palms together before I do the exercises. Does anybody have any tips that could help me? How long will it take for me to learn this?

This is the technique I learned, even though I could feel energy naturally it really helped develop my sensitivity to it.

You'll need: A notebook and a pen to record feelings, impressions etc..
Something to blindfold yourself.

What you do first is look around your room. Get a good feel for it, where your bed it, any dressers or desks etc... Now write down your first impressions of the room. If there is something you are naturally drawn to in the room write that down too. Then blind fold yourself. By depriving yourself of the key sense that we as humans take for granted your other senses will start to become more keen and sensitive to pick up the slack. Try to stand up after you've blindfolded yourself, use your hands if you need to, to feel your way around the room. Stand somewhere in the room, and note how the air current moves, how the room feels to you, does it feel like home? Does it have a certain positive and comforting quality to it, etc.. Make sure to remember this so you can note it down in your notebook. Do the exercise from 10-15 in your room for about a week straight, then you can try walking to the living room, or the bathroom and taking notes on the how the presence of each room changes. Make sure to stay away from stairways (we don't want anyone breaking their necks or other body parts). Make sure to take notes on each room and to write everything down afterwards.

You will start feeling the energy in each room over time, how it flows, how emotions influence it, etc...

The next method
You need: earplugs, your notebook and a headset (for like your mp3 player or the like)

The next method is to wear some ear plugs and put a head set on over them (because ear plugs don't rid all the noise). You'll do the same thing as above, minus the blind fold obviously. Try going for about an hour or so with the headphones and earplugs in and see how your body reacts to the presence of others, and the energy in each room.

Other things to take into account too are your senses of smell and taste. If you remember the last time you were sick, food doesn't taste the same, and that's because you can't smell much, the reason for this is because smell and taste are very interconnected.

For touch, you can't exactly do this by conventional means as skin is the largest organ of the body. The only way one could deprive this sense is to go into a seclusion chamber of some sort, which most normal people don't have one of these hanging around. Try to image though what this would be like, To never be able to feel the wind on your skin on a hot day, or sand/earth between your toes, etc... The thought can be very scary.

Lady vixen gave a great account, ill just add my two cents in. As a sensor myself i am in-tuned with picking up energy and this takes control over your own energy and understanding. Let me do a breakdown

What is the benefit of being a sensor

Sensing is one of the skills that opens you to all branches of energy manipulation like healing, illusions, etc. The better control you have over your energy the better you can do in magick

when you can successfully sense energy your perceptions will be enhanced. you will understand the feeling of energy, you will know how to work with energy from an overview.

Texture of energy

Energy has ways in which sensors interprate

prickly energy

known to get when meditating, and opening or receiving vibrations from the crown chakra. or sensing a spirit

Dense energy, around by physical active persons

or any kind of physical energy

hot/cold energy

this is normal during the time of spirit activity or tempreture flux in a room

The ultimate ganzfeld cocoon places you in utter darkness, you ware a rubber suit and float underwater wit weights attached(with an oxygen tube) so you cannot feel the effects of gravity, its used to maximise psychic powers. The problem is that when people are left under these conditions for to long they tend to go insane

I read about a technique where you rub your hands together,hold your arms appart and then slowly bring them back together again and try to feel the energy. Worked first time my hands seem to retractuntil i hold them together.

Wow, these are very good techniques, I'm also working on sensing my energies as well (though I can already sense them a little when I was a newbie haha), though, yeah, those only happens when I'm fully indulge in what I'm doing.

Anyway these might help me sense the energies of other things too, up until now I can only sense mine, and on a few occasions, the energies sent to me by others. Thanks again for the info.